heuristic for bad abstractions: when people in user-space ignore the operating system abstraction, just working through it to get at the actual resource
Alternative-ish explanation: If an abstraction is successful enough, the activation energy required to go around it (databases ignoring file system in order to get at disk) isn't worth it. Fewer tools to do so, fewer devs who know how, questionable payoff.
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Trouble is, there isn't a 'free market' for abstractions: sometimes you just have to use whatever the OS authors (for the OS you _must_ support) decided on. That means 'success' of abstractions hard to judge, I think -- relative to what?
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Also can be _impossible_ to get around an abstraction, no matter how much effort you put in: you can do network kernel bypass, but can you bypass the OS window system, or the browser frontend, and still achieve your goal as an application author?
End of conversation
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